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heaven_n	earth_n	look_v	lord_n	6,719	5	3.8059	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39674	Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1691 (1691)	Wing F1175; ESTC R21865	194,574	498

and so great evils in them as makes them admire at his patience that they are not consumed in their Iniquities They find cause enough to suspect their own sincerity doubt the truth of their Faith and of their Graces and are therefore frequent and serious in the trial and examination of their own states by Scripture-marks and signs They urge the Commands and Threatnings as well as the Promises upon their own hearts to promote Sanctification Excite themselves to duty and watchfulness against Sin They also encourage themselves by the rewards of obedience knowing their labour is not in vain in the Lord. And all this while they look not for that in themselves which is only to be found in Christ nor for that in the Law which is only to be found in the Gospel nor for that on Earth which is only to be found in Heaven This is the way that they take And he that shall tell them their Sins can do them no hurt or their Duties do them no good speaks to them not only as a Barbarian in a Language they understand not but in such a Language as their Souls detest and abhor Moreover The zeal and love of Christ and his Glory being kindled in their Souls they have not patience to hear such Doctrines as so greatly derogate from his Glory under a pretence of honouring and exalting him It wounds and grieves their very hearts to see the World hardned in their prejudices against Reformation and a gap opened to all licentiousness But notwithstanding this double Antidote and Security we find by daily experience such Doctrines too much obtaining in the professing World For my own part He that searches my Heart and Reins is witness I would rather chuse to have my right hand wither and my tongue rot within my mouth than to speak one word or write one line to cloud or diminish the Free-grace of God Let it arise and shine in its Meridian Glory None owes more to it or expects more from it than I do And what I shall write in this Controversy is to vindicate it from those Doctrines and Opinions which under pretence of exalting it do really militate against it To begin therefore with the first and leading Error Error I. That the Iustification of Sinners is an immanent and eternal act of God not only preceding all acts of sin but the very existence of the sinner himself and so perfectly abolishing sin in our persons that we are as clean from sin as Christ himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some of them have spoken To stop the progress of this Error I shall 1. Lay down the Sentence of the Orthodox about it 2. Offer some Reasons for the refutation of it 1. That which I take to be the truth agreed upon and asserted by sound reformed Divines touching Gospel-Justification is by them made clear to the World in these following Scriptural distinctions of it Justification may be considered under a twofold respect or habitude 1. According to God's Eternal Decree Or 2. According to the execution thereof in time 1. According to God's Eternal Decree and Purpose and in this respect Grace is said to be given us in Christ before the World began 2 Tim. 1. 9. And we are said to be predestinated to the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ Eph. 1. 5. 2. According to the execution thereof in time So they again distinguish it by considering it two ways 1. In its Impetration by Christ. 2. In its Application to us That very mercy or privilege of Justification which God from all Eternity purely out of his benevolent Love purposed and decreed for his Elect was also in time purchased for them by the death of Christ Rom. 5. 9 10. where we are said to be justified by his Blood and he is said to have made peace through the Blood of his Cross to reconcile all things to himself Col. 1. 20. to be delivered for our Offences and raised again for our Justification Rom. 4. 25. Once more That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses 2 Cor. 5. 19. God the Father had in the death of Christ a foundation of reconciliation whereby he became propitious to his Elect that he might absolve and justify them Again 2. It must be considered in its application to us which application is made in this Life at the time of our effectual Calling When an elect Sinner is united to Christ by Faith and so passeth from Death to Life from a state of Condemnation into a state of Absolution and Favour this is our actual Justification Rom. 5. 1. Acts 13. 39. Iohn 5. 24. which actual Justification is again considered two ways 1. Universally and in General as to the State of the Person 2. Specially and Particularly as to the Acts of Sin As soon as we are received into Communion with Christ and his Righteousness is imputed by God and received by Faith immediately we pass from a state of Death and Condemnation to a state of Life and Justification and all Sins already committed are remitted without Exception or Revocation and not only so but a Remedy is given us in the Righteousness of Christ against Sins to come and tho these special and particular Sins we afterward fall into do need particular Pardons yet by renewed Acts of Faith and Repentance the Believer applies to himself the Righteousness of Christ and they are pardoned Again they carefully distinguish betwixt 1. It 's Application by God to our Persons And 2. It 's Declaration or Manifestation in us and to us Which Manifestation or Declaration is either 1. Private in the Conscience of a Believer Or 2. Publick at the Bar of Judgment And thus Justification is many ways distinguished And notwithstanding all this it is still actus indivisus an undivided act not on our part for it is iterated in many acts but on God's part who at once decreed it and on Christ's part who by one Offering purchased it and at the time of our Vocation universally applied it as to the state of the Person justified and that so effectually as no future Sin shall bring that Person any more under Condemnation In this Sentence or Judgment the Generality of Reformed Orthodox Divines are agreed and the want of distinguishing as they according to Scripture have distinguished hath led the Antinomians into this first Error about Justification and that Error hath led them into most of the other Errors That this Doctrine of theirs which teaches that Men are justified actually and compleatly before they have a being is an Error and hath no solid Foundation to support it may be evidenced by these three Reasons 1. Because it is Irrational 2. Because it is Unscriptural 3. Because it is Injurious to Christ and the Souls of Men. It is Irrational to imagine that Men are actually justified before they have a Being by an immanent Act or Decree of God Many things have been urged upon this

pardon The desert of Sin is Hell 't is an artifice of Satan to draw men to Sin by persuading them there is no great evil in it but none except Fools will believe it Fools indeed make a mock of Sin but all that understand either the intrinsick evil of it or the sad and dismal effects produced by it are far from thinking it a light or inconsiderable evil The sins even of Believers greatly wrong and offend their God Psal. 51. 4. and is that a light thing with us They interrupt and clog our Communion with God Rom. 7. 21. They grieve the good Spirit of God Ephes. 4. 30. Certainly these are no inconsiderable mischiefs 3. Now if there be sin in Believers and so much evil in their sins neither of which any sober Christian will deny then undoubtedly it is their duty to confess it freely mourn for it bitterly and pray for the pardon of it earnestly unless God have any where discharged them from those Duties and told them these are none of their concernments and that he expects not these things from justified persons but that these are Duties properly and only belonging to other Men. But on the contrary you find the whole current of Scripture running strongly and constantly in direct opposition to such idle and sinful notions For first 1. He hath plainly declared it to be his will that his people should confess their sins before him and strongly connected their Confessions with their Pardons 1 Iohn 5. 9. and frequently suspends from them the comfortable sense of forgiveness till their Hearts be brought to this duty Psal. 32. 5. compared with vers 3. 4. the more to engage them to this duty by the sensible ease and comfort attending and following it 2. He also enjoyns it upon them That they mourn for their Sins Isa. 22. 12. expresses his great delight in contrition and brokenness of spirit for sin Isa. 66. 2. To this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit Christ himself pronounces a blessing upon them that mourn Matt. 5. 4. Justified Paul mournfully confesses his former blasphemies persecutions and injuries done against Christ 1 Tim. 1. 13. So did Ezra Daniel and other eximious Saints Yes say some they did indeed confess their sins committed before their justification but not their after-sins According to Antinomian Principles I would demand If all the Elect were justified from Eternity what sins any of them could confess which they had committed before their Justification Or if they were justified from the time of Christ's death what were the Sins any of us have to confess who had not a being and therefore had not actually sinned long after the death of Christ But I hope none will deny that the mournful complaints the Apostle makes for Sin Rom. 7. 23 24. were after he was a sanctified and justified person 3. It is not the Will of Christ to exempt any justified person upon Earth from the Duty of Praying frequently and fervently for the remission of his sins This the most eminent Saints upon Earth have done The greatest favourites of Heaven have freely confessed and heartily prayed for the remission of sin Dan. 9. 4 19. And that the Gospel gives us no exemption from this Duty appears by Christ's injunction of it upon all his people Matt. 6. 12. Error V. To give countenance to the former Error they say That God sees no sin in Believers whatsoever sins they commit and seek a covert for this Error from Numb 23. 21. and Ier. 50. 20. In the former place it is said by Balaam He hath not beheld inquity in Iacob nor seen perverseness in Israel And in the other place it is said In those days and in that time saith the Lord the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall be none and the sins of Iudah and they shall not be found for I will pardon them whom I reserve Refutation Now that this Opinion of our Antinomians is Erroneous will appear four ways 1. By its repugnancy to God's Omniscience 2. By its inconsistency with his Dispensations 3. By its want of a Scripture-foundation 4. By its contradictoriness to their other Principles 'T is true and we thankfully acknowledge it that God sees no Sin in Believers as a Judge sees Guilt in a Malefactor to condemn him for it that 's a sure and comfortable truth for us but to say he sees no Sin in his Children as a displeased Father to correct and chasten them for it is an Assertion repugnant to Scripture and very injurious to God For 1. 'T is injurious to God's Omniscience Psal. 139. 2. Thou saith holy David knowest my down-sitting and my uprising and understandest my thoughts of afar off and art acquainted with all my ways Job 28. 24. He looketh to the ends of the Earth and seeth under the whole Heavens Prov. 15. 3. The Eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good Psal. 33. 14 15. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the Inhabitants of the Earth he fashioneth their hearts alike he considereth all their works He that denies that God seeth his most secret Sins therein in consequentially denies him to be God 2. This Assertion is inconsistent with God's Providential Dispensations to his People When David a justified Believer had sinned against him in the matter of Vriah it is said 2 Sam. 11. 27. The thing that David had done displeased the Lord and as the effect of that displeasure it 's said Chap. 12. 15. The Lord struck the Child that Uriah's Wife bare unto David and it was very sick Among the Corinthians some that should not be condemned with the World were judged and chastened of the Lord for their undue approaches to his Table 1 Cor. 11. 32. Now I would ask the Antinomian these two Questions 1. Qu. Whether it can be denied that David under the Old Testament and these Corinthians under the New were justified Persons and yet the former stricken by God in his Child with its sickness and death and the latter in like manner smitten by God in their own persons and both for their respective sins committed against God and yet God saw no sin in them Did God smite them for sin and yet beheld no sin them Beware lest in ascribing such strokes to god you strike at once both at his Omnisciency and Justice 2. Qu. How God upon Confession and Repentance can be said to put away his People's sins as Nathan there assures David he had done when in the mean time he saw no sin in him either to chastise him for or to pardon in him Do you think that God's A●flictions or Pardons are blind-fold Acts done at random how inconsistent is this with Divine Dispensations 3. This Opinion is altogether destitute of a Scripture-foundation 't is evident it hath none in the only places alledged for it It hath no footing at all in Numb 23. 21.

means the Sacred Scriptures are most injuriously wrested the Peace and Order of the Church disturbed and a great many Mistakes and Errors introduced The Remedies The prevention and cure of Errors this way introduced or likely to be introduced into the Church is by pondering and applying the following Considerations Consideration I. Let all that encourage others or undertake by others encouragement such a Work as this for which they are not competently qualified and unto which they are not regularly called consider seriously with themselves what danger they cast their own and other mens Souls upon The Apostle tells us 2 Pet. 3. 16. That the unlearned and unstable do wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction Danger enough one would think to scare them from it did not the same sin of Ignorace which makes them wrest the Scriptures cause them also to slight and overlook the danger of so doing Certainly my Friends it is a great deal safer and more excusable to put an ignorant Rustick into an Apothecary's Shop to compound a Medicine of Drugs and Spirits which he understands not and considently administer the same to the Bodies of men than for such Persons as are led by ignorance and confidence to intermeddle with the Ministerial Employment the one perhaps by mistake may poison mens Bodies but the other their Souls An ignorant Master or Pilot that never learned the Compass are rather to be trusted among Rocks and Quick-sands than a proud ignorant Person with the conduct of Souls Consideration II. What daring Presumption is it to intrude our selves into so great and weighty an Employment without any Call or Warrant of Christ Rom. 10. 14. How shall they call upon him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent These Mysteries must be committed to faithful Men who shall be able to teach others Those Abilities must be examined 1 Tim. 3. 10. and the Exercise of them warranted by a due and orderly appointment thereunto 1 Tim. 4. 14. else as one well observes In tàm praeposterâ disciplinae ruinâ tot essent sensus quot capita tot dissensus quot sensus We shall have as many senses of Scripture as we have Preachers c. If every Phaeton that thinks himself able shall undertake to drive the Chariot of the Sun no wonder if the World be set on fire Gifts and Abilities of Mind are not of themselves sufficient to make a Preacher Some Lawyers at the Bar may be as skilful as the Iudge upon the Bench but without a Commission they dare not sit there Consideration III. The honour you affect to vent your unsound Notions with liberty is in Scripture-account your greatest dishonour The Scripture reckons false Teachers among the basest of the People The Prophet that teacheth lyes he is the Tayl i. e. the basest part of the whole body of the People Isa. 9. 15. And so far is due Gospel-Liberty from countenancing such dangerous Irregularities that we find in a clear Prophecy of Gospel-times what shame God will pour upon them Zech. 13. 4 5. They shall be brought with shame enough to confess I am no Prophet I am an Husband-man for man taught me to keep Cattel from my youth Consideration IV. How much more safe regular and advantageous were it for such as you to fill your own proper Places under able and faithful Gospel-Ministers and to suck the Breasts of fruitful Ordinances than to consume and pine away by sucking your own Breasts I mean living upon your own weak and insufficient Gifts in the sinful neglect of Christ's Appointments Cause XIV False Teachers also propagate their Errors by a Spirit of ENTHVSIASM the usual concomitant of Erroneous Doctrine and draw away multitudes after them by pretending to extraordinary Revelations Visions and Voices from Heaven which seem to give great credit to their Way and Party This was an old trick and practice of Deceivers Deut. 13. 1. to give Signs and Wonders in confirmation of their Way which Signs the Lord may permit to fall out to prove his People vers 2. 3. tho for the most part they are confuted by their unanswerable Events In the beginning of our Reformation by Luther Calvin c. there sprung up a Generation of Men called Swenkfeldians great Pretenders to Revelations and Visions who were always speaking of Deifications and an higher strain of Language they commonly used among themselves than other serious Christians understood and therefore scornfully entitled Orthodox and humble Christians who stuck to the Scripture-phrase and wholsome form of sound words Grammatists Vocabulists Literalists c. These Men as Scultetus in his Annals ad annum 1525. Observes of them were so entangled in certain Enthusiastick Snares that they thought it the highest impiety to renounce them and they had befooled multitudes with their magnificent words of Illumination Revelation Deification Much of the same Spirit was Thomas Muntzer Iohn of Leyden David George Iacob Behmen c. whose cloudy Nonsense aenigmatical Expressions and wilful Obscurity drew many into a strange admiration of them They all pretend to an higher knowledge of Mysteries than what the Gospel is acquainted with and and yet give us as Mr. Baxter well observes neither Reasons with Aristotle nor Miracles with Christ and his Apostles to cause us to believe any of their new Revelations Vid. Baxter of the Sin against the Holy Ghost p. 148. Of the same Bran were our late Familists in England of whom Henry Nichols was the chief Leader who decried the written Word as a dead Letter and set up their own fond Conceits and Fancies under the notion of the Spirit against whom that heavenly and Learned Man Mr. Samuel Rutherford seasonably and succesfully appeared Hacket Coppinger and Arthington were of the same Tribe who lived a-while wrapt up in Antinomian Fancies which at last brake forth into the highest and most horrid Blasphemies Another Art they make use of to seduce the Credulous is a pretence unto the Spirit of Prophecy and great sucsess they promise themselves this way among the weak but curious Vulgar And to this end Satan hath inspired and employed some Cunninger Heads to invent very pleasing Predictions and Prophecies in favour of that Party whom he designs to deceive And how catching and bewitching these things are gaining more respect among these vain Spirits than the divine unquestionable Prophecies of Scripture this Age hath had full and sad experience Now the Design of Satan in these things is to gain credit to those Sects as People peculiarly favoured and beloved of God above others as if they were the particular Favourites of Heaven as Daniel was and so to draw the Multitude to admire their Persons and espouse their Errors The Remedies Now the Remedies in this Case are such as follow Remedy I. Whatever Doctrine or Practice seeks credit to it self this way falls justly thereby under suspicion that it wants a

God or that the Troubles of good men in this life fall not out by casualty but by the counsel and direction of Divine Providence He that denies the hand of God to be upon the Persons of Believers in this life in the way of painful Chastisements and Sufferings must either ignorantly or wilfully overlook that Scripture Heb. 7. 8. What Son is he whom the Father chasteneth not but if ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers then are ye Bastards and not Sons Nor will any sober Christian deny these Troubles of Believers to be the effects of God's governing-Providence in the World or once imagine or affirm them to be mere Casualties and Contingences for affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground Job 5. 6. In what Eutopia doth that good man live upon Earth that feels not the painful Rod of God upon himself nor hears the sad laments and moans of other Christians under it This sure is undeniable that the Rod of God is every-where upon the Persons and Tabernacles of the Righteous and if any doubt it his own sense and feeling may in a little time give him a painful demonstration of it 2. And for the second That this Rod of God is sometimes laid upon Believers for their Sins methinks no sober modest Christian in the World should doubt or deny it when he considers That 1. God himself hath so declared it 2. The Saints in all Ages have freely confessed it to be so 1. God himself hath fully and plainly declared it to be so 2 Sam. 12. 9 10 11 12 13 14. Wherefore hast thou despised the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight now therefore the Sword shall never depart from thy House c. Here 's the Sword a terrible and painful Evil upon David's House a man after God's own heart and that expresly for his Sin in the matter of Vriah So Moses one of the greatest Favourites of Heaven for his sinful shifting of the Lord's Work Exod. 4. 13 14. The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses For the multitude of thine iniquities because thy sins were encreased I have done these things unto thee saith God to his own Israel Ier. 30. 15. To instance in all the Declarations made by God himself in this case were to transcribe a great part of both Testaments 2. And as God hath declared the Sins of his People to be the provoking causes of his rods upon them so they have freely and ingenuously confessed and acknowledged the same Lam. 3. 39 40. Wherefore doth the living man complain a man for the punishment of his Sins Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. This was spoken by Ieremy in the name of the whole captive Church So Psal. 38. 3 5. There is no soundness in my flesh saith David because of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my Sin My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness And were it not an hideous and unaccountable thing to hear any Child of God under his Rod to stand upon his own justification and say Lord my Sins have not deserved this at thy hand nor is it justice in thee thus to chastise me after thou hast received satisfaction for all my Sins from the hand of Christ. Would it not look like an horrid Blasphemy to hear the best man in the World disputing and denying the Justice of God in the troubles he lays him under For my own part let the Lord lay on as smartly as he will upon me I desire to follow the holy Patterns and Presidents recorded in Scripture for my imitation and to say with the People of God Ezr. 9. 13. Thou hast punished me less than mine iniquities deserve And Mica 7. 9. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him And he that refuses so to do gives little evidence of the Spirit of Adoption in him but a very clear evidence of the pride and ignorance of his own heart Iob indeed stifly stood upon his own vindication but that was when he had to do with men who falsly charged him laying those Sins as the causes of his trouble which he was innocent of Iob 22. 5 6. But when he had to do with God he disputes no more but saith Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee I will lay my hand upon my mouth q. d. I have done Father I have done Whether these Chastisements be for my Sins or no sure I am my Sin not only deserves all this but Hell it self Thou art holy but I am vile 3. Nor can it at all be doubted but that these Fatherly Corrections of the Saints for their Sins are reconcileable to and fully consistent with his Justice satisfied by the Blood of Christ for all their Sins For 1. If it were not so the just and righteous God would never have inserted such a clause of reservation in his gracious Covenant with his People to chasten them as he saw need after he had taken them into the Covenant Psal. 89. 30 31 32 33. If they transgress he will visit their Transgressions with a Rod and their Iniquity with Stripes nevertheless saith he my loving-kindness will I not take away That Nevertheless clearly proves the consistency of his stripes for sin with his loving-kindness to his People and with Christ's satisfaction for their Sins 2. If this were not consistent with the Justice of God to be sure he would never single them out to spend his Rods upon rather than others 'T is most certain the holiest men have most lashes in this life Asaph said Psal. 73. 12 14. The ungodly prosper in the World but he was chastned every morning And vers 5. The Wicked are not in trouble as other men 1 Pet. 4. 17. Iudgment must begin at the House of God and if Piety would give men an exemption from all troubles pains and chastisements then men might discern love or hatred by the things that are before them contrary to Eccl. 9. 1 2. Neither could those that are in Christ suffer the painful Agonies of Death because of sin expresly contrary to Paul Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you the Body is dead because of sin 3. In a word As Christ never shed his Blood to extinguish or abolish God's displeasure against sin in whomsoever it be found so he never shed it to deprive his People of the manifold blessings and advantages that accrue to them by the Rods of God upon them It was never his intent to put us into a condition on Earth that would have been so much to our loss So then if the hand of God be upon his People for sin and consistently enough with his Justice it must be an Error to say God smites not Believers for their sins and it would be injustice in him so to do which is their 6th Error Error VII